Monday, October 7, 2013

This is just the subtitle, the actual title is hovering in the air just above your computer or smartphone.

Yesterday was one of those wet, misty days, and if you participated in the MS Bike Tour I hope you're recovering well. I say "recovering" because, based on what I observed while out bicycle-cycling myself, roughly 75% of that ride's participants managed to fall from their Fred chariots. Of that 75%, I'd say roughly half fell while slowing and then attempting to turn, while the other half were merely attempting to disengage themselves from their clipless pedals in order to obtain coffee.

Please note that I don't mean to disparage a worthy cause. I'm simply referring to the vexing relationship most Americans seem to have to recreational bicycle-cycling, and I think the aforementioned 75% would benefit enormously by reading this:

(The one on the top, not the other pieces of crap.)

Anyway, New York City. There's a lot to love here: the world-class museums you never bother go to, the manicured parks crowded with assholes and tourists, the renowned cultural institutions you can't afford to visit... Maybe you live here and you're addicted to the fast pace and the heady mélange of people from all corners of the globe. (Yeah, right.) Or, maybe you don't live here, yet you're still smitten by the romantic manner in which the city has been portrayed in film over the years: a town of nebbishy intellectuals pontificating entertainingly as they perambulate, yet one that is also not afraid to roll over and show you its seedy underbelly.

Anywhere else, breakfast might have had to wait. But, in a land where a bouquet of daffodils, a clubbing outfit or a box of Pampers can be summoned in the flicker of a smartphone screen, the solution was simple. Thus began Mr. Diaz’s habit of having his morning sustenance delivered directly to his car. “I have the whole works,” said Mr. Diaz, a shoe salesman. “Bacon, eggs, home fries, toast. I have a real breakfast in my car. It smells like a restaurant.”

This is one of the most depressing things I've read in weeks. "It smells like a restaurant." There's something so tragic about that quote. There are about 900 restaurants per block on the Upper West Side, yet this guy sits in his Mitsubishi "hotboxing" bacon, eggs, and flatulence. It's like coming home to find your wife waiting for you in lingerie and saying, "You know what, honey? I'm gonna take a pass and go wank off in the car."

Also, if your most cherished indulgence is eating in your car, why not reduce your cost of living by like a million dollars a month and move to the Midwest? Not only would you be able to upgrade that Mitsubishi SUV to some other piece of shit SUV with bigger cupholders, but you could take all your meals at Sonic and never have to sit around waiting for the street sweepers (or streetcleaners if you prefer) to make their rounds ever again.

Of course, the key to dining dans la voiture in New York City is the bicycle, a machine nobody wants to have fuck-all to do with while they're driving unless it's bringing them a sandwich:

John Hackett recalled biking uptown from the Financial District four summers ago when he witnessed a police boat heading straight to the East River shore.“I thought they were going to be jumping off like a SWAT team or something,” Mr. Hackett said.But there was a man on the bicycle waiting. “The next moment, the boat kind of kissed the shore. There’s a policeman there reaching over the railing of the esplanade and getting this bag of evidently Chinese food, and handing money back to the delivery guy,” Mr. Hackett said.And then? “Everybody went their own way,” he said.

“O HARP and altar,” marveled the poet Hart Crane about the Brooklyn Bridge. But if you don’t love it as he did, don’t worry. With bridges, as with everything else in New York City, you are spoiled for choice. More than 2,000 bind this metropolis.Still, let’s build one more — a pedestrian and cyclist bridge from Brooklyn to Governors Island to Lower Manhattan. Let’s call it the New Bridge.

Actually, I think a better name for this bridge would be the Trans-Harbor Clusterfucktacular. The idealist in me loves the idea of New York City having the most majestic bike-and-pedestrian span in the world, yet the realist knows I'd want to jump off of it to my death if I ever actually tried to use it. If you've attempted to cross the Brooklyn Bridge by foot or by bicycle you can only imagine what a night-terror traversing this bridge would be.

Anyway, it's probably not even worth thinking about it, since the All-Powerful Bicycle Pontoon Lobby will never let it become a reality:

The All-Powerful Bicycle Pontoon Lobby has billions invested in Governors Island becoming New York City's premier recreational destination, at which point they will position their pontoon system as the best alternative to infrequent ferry service--and as stupid as I still think bicycle pontoons are, I'd give pretty much anything to see someone try using them with a Citi Bike.

Here's more proof that the writer of the opinion piece has not thought things through:

Making the New Bridge won’t be easy. A bridge high enough to allow large ships to pass would require long approaches, set well back from the waterfronts. We could build such a bridge all the way from Manhattan to Brooklyn, with access down to Governors Island via sweeping or spiraled ramps. Or we might build two spans: a low bridge from Brooklyn to Governors Island and then a second, movable bridge — there are many options, from a typical drawbridge to an elegant tilt bridge — onto Manhattan. We must also consider the company this bridge would keep. It must be beautiful, day and night.

Spiraled ramps? Are you kidding?!? Has this person ever ridden on the George Washington Bridge? There's one (1) sharp turn on the bike path ramp that eats Freds for breakfast, and all it takes is a single wobbly, timid tridork getting wedged in there and the entire span backs up all the way to Hackensack. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's actually one stuck in there in the satellite photo:

If they had a spiraling ramp to Governors Island--from Brooklyn no less, which is home to the city's most incompetent cyclists--the Coast Guard would have to airlift cyclists off the "New Bridge" by helicopter on an hourly basis for traffic to move at all.

“It’s made for a rider who isn’t comfortable with a drop bar, so this gets them started,” a Giant rep explained about the AnyRoad.

How does this "get you started" with a drop bar? Either a bike has a drop bar or it doesn't. Anyway, everyone knows the proper way to learn how to ride a gravel bike is to start with sand, since the grains are tiny. Then, you slowly work your way up to full-size gravel chunks.

I know Snob is bitter and angry about it, but shop monkeys will be able to sell it.

Regarding the bridge to whatever island you think exists, if it's a pedestrian/cycling bridge, in theory one could give it quite a steep grade. Freds would hit whoo-hoo speeds! But, that would make it harder to summit than Mount Whitney for New Yawkus and traveling 'merkuns.

We don’t need no stinking bridge. There is a big air vent structure just north of Gov’s Island, on the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel (Hugh L. Carey Tunnel) that is connected to the island by a small causeway. Visible on Goolge maps/earth. Just relocate the Guggenheim ramp and stripe a couple of bike lanes in the tunnel and we’re done.

Not that I could quite figure out what it was between Byrne recalling his early years in NYC and the guilt he has for being completely disconnected from a life where people that have to work for a living.

Somewhere in there, people are supposed to make stuff and not take a well paying job shoveling fraud at a bank.

Hey! My bike has beginner drop bars! I thought they were just matchy-matchy with the compact crank, but it's bad when you get to the top of a hill only to notice you're still in the drops, isn't it? That's how you know you have baby drops.

Leroy, your dog makes me ever so grateful the boy's cat can't talk. I see how she looks at me.

At least, according to The Proverbs And Epigrams Of John Heywood, 1562:

Some hear and see him whom he heareth nor seeth not But fields have eyes and woods have ears, ye wotAnd also on my maids he is ever tooting. Can ye judge a man, (quoth I), by his looking? What, a cat may look on a king, ye know! My cat's leering look, (quoth she), at first show, Showeth me that my cat goeth a caterwauling; And specially by his manner of drawing To Madge, my fair maid.

funny, I did the Bike MS thing yesterday (and you couldn't be more right about the spaz factor) on my way back over the GWB I got stuck on that hairpin on the pedestrian offramp behind a tandem with what looked like two octogenarians (not on the bike MS ride). They had to get off and walk their bike through the turn while I balanced at about 2mph behind them. I did not yell "on your left" because at their age I don't think they would have heard me. Anyway, I guess today's blog is topical for my day yesterday. keep up the good work wildman cat machine.

Snob, I see what you're doing here. You've become a shill for Rivendell. You openly mock gravel bikes, yet subliminally plant the idea in people's heads that peoples bikes should be "gravel ready". Then you recommend Just Ride.

To be fair, I read Just Ride, fully expecting to disagree with about 3/4 of what Grant had to say. I was amazed at how much I agreed with. I picked up a few tips and discovered in one or two respects I'm even more retrogrouchy than Grant. Oh no, I've become the shill.

My friend's brother couldn't stand Dorito smell, couldn't even tolerate you eating them nearby. So my friend hotboxed his brother's car with it one time. Got up early, went out there with a bag of Doritos, sat in the car with all the windows rolled up, eating Doritos and breathing heavily through his mouth. Got out and quickly closed the door. When time came for the brother to leave for school, he gets in the car and is greeted by a car full of hot, humid, Dorito-breath.

Anyone who follows this blog knows exactly which byrne-face to picture when reading this line, "I wave to the doubledecker buses from my bike, but the passengers never wave back. Why? Am I not an attraction?"

There was a 6 story parking ramp that my buddies and I would have races in after midnight. It had a spiral ramp for exiting. We would ride up the parking area and zoom down the spiral for a few laps. It gets hard to maintain a constant high speed turn for 6 stories and once in a while someone would lose it and crash. While this was a lot of fun, I think its a bad idea for the common fred-sucker.

I think the gravel bike trend will really take off once Walmart starts to sell them since many Walmarts are located in gravel road territory.

I did 65 out of the 100 miles of the MS Bike thing yesterday too. Now my "friends" are saying "you owe me 35% of my donation $$ back!"... in jest of course. I (almost) did it on a Peugeot PX-50 Franken Rando 650B. The reason for DNF (aside from the solid fog, rain coating the glasses, being scared of 40mph downhill on slippery roads) was it weighed more than a CitiBike when I packed it up (yes, I do meed a kitchen sink), plus I am 30 pounds overweight! Was a good day all things considered (no falls or hospitalization required). Too much ship traffic near Govs Isl. I'd rather see a Fredwalk / FredPlank installed on the VZ bridge to SI.vsk

The problem with cyclocross, as I see it, is that it has taken over by a bunch of roadie dickheads who think that every bike ride should be some sort of fashion show*. Once upon a time, people raced cross on whatever shit they could cobble together. Now $3200 bikes and $1500 crabon fibre tubular wheelsets are considered to be reasonable entry-level equipment. I am still trying to "race" on whatever shit I can cobble together, but it is becoming harder to tolerate the constant pressure to (unnecessarily) upgrade my equipment.

Sincerely, Freddy

* I am not even going to go into the fact that nearly 100% of cyclists look like complete idiots in their biking togs and that "fashion show" is highly relative.

JB, Naturally my buddy was watching surreptitiously when the brother got in the car. About 4 seconds after closing the door, he threw it back open and came tumbling out and made a sound like "MUUUEHHHH!" When I say he tumbled out, he didn't even bother putting a foot down to stand up, he just threw himself clear like the car was about to go over a cliff.

DB, conventional wisdom says go with the smaller frame b/c less materials = lighter bike. Works if you are average or short-waisted. If you are long-waisted, go with the bigger bike with the longer top tube.

Spot on lad! The niche has mostly grown more from roadies extending their cat 6 season in most places in uh-meh-ri-cuh.

A couple of places that do not do USAC races actually have many more riders on all kinds of equipment. That mystical place is called Oregon, wherever OBRA operates. Washington State is rumoured to have big no-USAC cyclocross fields.

When will the bike industry realize the vast, untapped market of pedal powered flight? I can see a full crabon bike that attaches/detaches from a set of wings.. Then the skies above the Hudson would be full of freds in full flight, desperately trying to make it to the other side before lactic acid ended their epic flight in a anti-climactic cold, polluted, splash.

"I think it is just terrible and disgusting how everyone has treated Lance Armstrong, especially after what he achieved, winning seven Tour de France races while on drugs. When I was on drugs, I couldn't even find my bike..." Willie Nelson

Sand bike...awesome ...I was standing on woodchips waiting for mates on a ride( standing on the cycle path renders one vulnerable to crashes in the morning commuter Olympics) and was pondering the birth of another "specific " bike ... A woodchip traversing cycle ...useful for cities as woodchips are cheaper than grass, so there is much to be traversed. It will come as a singlespeed option for those hardcore woodchippers.

Must mention when out mountain biking we are on the wrong bikes and need sand and gravel specific bikes( that is mountain biking in Western Australia...no mud!)!!

"If you've attempted to cross the Brooklyn Bridge by foot or by bicycle you can only imagine what a night-terror traversing this bridge would be."

Thirty years ago, creaking across the Manhattan Bridge on the D train at 2 mph, eyeing the rusted steel, empty space, and random wood plank where the northside footpath is now, I thought it would be too narrow for a bike lane and I'd never walk or ride across that bridge. Now I do, every day, or night. Build Sam Schwartz's bridges! We will use them!

I once rode with a lone wolf who had an older aluminum Trek with front and seat shocks. He rode through miles of large, closely-spaced gravel on a dirt road but it defeated me. His tires were not fat tires but smoother road tires. He had great balance and was confident enough to let the front sort of go where it wanted to over the gravel. Riding gravel like this is achieved through ability and technique, rather than having a gravel bike. Also, shocks can help.

I was running 200 psi tubeless crabon disk wheels, it may have been that.

Speaking of shocks on road bikes: Remember the royal blue and yellow colorway Cannondale mtn. bikes with the "head shock?" I saw a guy that had installed a headshock fork on the same vintage and colorway road bike. Vintage gravel bike?

McFly - I am reasonably certain that Dave Z is not a Mormon. Believe it or not, some Utahans are not practitioners of the faith. Dave Z's non-Mormon status is even documented in the Desert News, which is a newspaper owned by the Mormon Church.

"Growing up in Salt Lake City, he was neither a Mormon nor a wild non-Mormon — his description of the only two choices available for a young person. So he chose to spend time alone riding his bike."

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!